


Reconciliation

by LieutenantSaavik



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series (Movies)
Genre: (not his proudest moment), Gen, Like, a brainless teenager who just sat there the whole time, anyway i was saddened by the cold way saavik and spock said goodbye in TVH, clearly he didn't know what she'd done for him on genesis when he was, so i wanted to write a realistic depiction of how their relationship could be repaired, spirk is THERE but it's not the focus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2017-07-17
Packaged: 2018-12-03 05:07:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11525175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LieutenantSaavik/pseuds/LieutenantSaavik
Summary: “I heard nothing from you for so long, and now that you’re here, I wish you hadn’t come,” Saavik says flatly. She wipes her eyes, understands that her logic is unstable. “I will be in Amanda’s garden if you need me.”“Wait.” Spock's voice stops her as she turns.Saavik makes no verbal response to the command.“Is there any way-”“No.”





	Reconciliation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lah_mrh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lah_mrh/gifts).



> In TWOK-TVH, Saavik was ranked as a Junior Grade Lieutenant but still referred to as “Lieutenant.” I’ve set this in between TFF and TUC -- I'd imagine that Saavik would have received a promotion by then, and between those two movies, Spock and crew were again on Shore Leave.

****I.  
re·un·ion  
rēˈyo͞onyən/  
_noun  
_ noun: **reunion** ; plural noun: **reunions** ; noun: **re-union** ; plural noun: **re-unions**

  1. an instance of two or more people coming together again after a period of separation.  




“It’s been a long time,” Spock says quietly.

“Yes, I believe it has,” Saavik replies. She brushes her hair back from her ears and meets his eyes evenly. Her new Lieutenant pips glint, and she hopes he notices her increase in rank. “How is the Captain?”

“He seems happy.”

“And you?”

“I feel at peace.”

Saavik shifts her weight. “I’m glad. Your marriage has been twenty Earth years by now, hasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

She is wary of him; they don’t know each other.  It’s the first time they’ve been alone together in at least three years.

Saavik knows she has to ask the question that’s been sitting in her mind ever since Spock bid her farewell. Gathering strength, she pulls it from her throat. It does not come up easily.

“I have to ask you-” she starts. She draws another breath.

Spock raises an eyebrow.

Saavik is still young. The rest of it comes out in a rush. “What do you remember of Genesis?”

“I have no recollection of my time without my _katra_.”

The answer is not surprising. Saavik looks down and to the side. “You must know what transpired.”

Spock, very slowly, nods. “I do.”

Saavik bites the inside of her lip. “Not the full ritual. Far from it. Just enough to sate you, to keep you alive. But -- I thought you should know.”

“I thank you.”

“You never did before,” she says before she can stop herself. Her words are clipped.

“I never thanked you,” repeats Spock slowly. He looks up at her sharply. “And you have carried resentment.”

Saavik shakes her head. “You have no memory. You did not know what you did, what you were doing. I -- I was irrational, angry. You returned, and I had my _family_ back. And you never -- I understand why you had to meditate, why you had to step back from the world to regain your knowledge and your memories. But I could have helped you -- you turned away.”

Spock watches her. Saavik keeps going, not caring for the first time in years what he thinks. “I saved your life, and David, your bondmate’s son and my only friend, died for us. I don’t blame you for his death. I only blame Kruge. But I remember the scene, and I can never forget it. You wouldn’t know because you never asked me, but it stays on the backs of my eyelids when I try to sleep. And you think that just because you have your family on the Enterprise you can go save planet Earth and forget about me, and I know you have your _t’hy’la_ and your career and your life-” she cuts herself off here, slowing, making sure what she’s saying is what she means. “I know you have your whole new life to live by James Kirk’s side. But I don’t know why you never thought I could be a part of it.”

She tries to stop herself from crying. The light streaming in the window makes the floor gold, and the salt tears clinging to her lashes make it blurry. “I heard nothing from you for so long, and now that you’re here, I wish you hadn’t come,” she says flatly. She wipes her eyes, understands that her logic is unstable. “I will be in Amanda’s garden if you need me.”

“Wait.” His voice stops her as she turns.

Saavik makes no verbal response to the command.

“Is there any way-”

“No.” The word carries finality.

Spock lets her leave. Her dark hair travels out of the room, and moments later, a door opens and shuts.

He looks down at his hands, places his fingertips together. He does not meditate, but he retreats.

 

II.  
dis·tance  
ˈdistəns/  
_noun_

  1. an amount of space between two things or people.  




Saavik snaps a flower from Amanda’s least favorite rosebush, grinding the petals into her fist. She drops the oozy tatters on the ground and resists the urge to step on them before turning her destructive attentions to another thriving decoration. She wrenches and twists another flower, relishing the thorns as they tear her skin. She knows the physical can erase the mental, and as she focuses on the pain in the flesh of her hand, she forgets for a moment how much her heart is hurting.

Then she blinks, drops the remains of the second flower, and takes a step backward. She covers her eyes with her hands, half-staggers.

 _Violence is a trait associated with Romulans and V’tosh Ka'tur, Saavik_ , she hears in her head. Words from years ago, still strong.

She turns sharply and leaves the property. She does not return for supper.

 

III.  
re·luc·tance  
rəˈləktəns/  
_noun  
_ noun: **reluctance**

  1. unwillingness or disinclination to do something.  




The meal is quiet. Sarek is not present; he is still at Starfleet Headquarters. Amanda finds Spock unresponsive, but that doesn’t stop her from trying.

“How is Saavik?” is her first question, and when Spock’s response is, “Logically speaking, only she could answer that with perfect accuracy,” she shakes her head and asks, “Why did you fight?”

“I would not call our conversation any sort of ‘fight.’”

Amanda gives him a knowing look. “She destroyed two of my flowers. Pulled them right out of the bush. Then she stormed right out; she hasn’t been back since.”

Spock blinks. “She destroyed two of your flowers? I fail to see why she would do such a thing.”

“I think you made her angry. I never got the full story of what happened on Genesis, but I’m guessing that if I were her, I would be angry, too.”

“It’s irrational for her to be angry,” Spock argues back calmly. “It gets nothing done.”

“But anger evolved as a response to injustice. Is it, then, so illogical? One gets angry because they have been mistreated; that anger leads to action, which often leads to a better situation for that person in the future.”

“One gets angry because they _feel_ they have been mistreated,” Spock corrects.

“I concede.” Amanda takes a bite of her pasta (only when Sarek is gone do they indulge in human food). “But, you know, she has a reason to be angry.”

“There is never a reason to be angry,” Spock says on principle, but he knows it isn’t true.

“You know that’s not true,” Amanda observes. “You know that’s not true _right now_ , in fact.”

Spock marvels for a moment at how well she always knew him. “I concede,” he echoes.

There is a silence for a long time. Finally, he asks, “What do you advise I do?”

Amanda looks toward the door as if Saavik will come back any moment. “Say you’re sorry. And for the love of God or Surak, Spock, thank her for what she did for you.”

 

IV.  
shame  
SHām/  
_noun_

  1. a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior.  




Saavik lies down on her bed, eyes on the ceiling. She relapsed. She got angry, she let it show, and worst of all, she couldn’t face it.

The orange mountains left echoes in the back of her mind. She does not belong here, and with that realisation comes the familiar one that it was stupid to hope she ever would. She is not only a hybrid but a child of four cultures -- the Romulans, the Vulcans, Starfleet, and Hellguard’s cold survival -- and each pulls her, leaving her stranded in the middle. If someone were to ask her where home is, she would not be able to answer. The Enterprise might have been, but she knows it’s time for her to step outside her mentor’s shadow and be just Saavik, rather than Saavik, Spock’s protégée. She is weary of Spock’s famous name dangling directly after hers in a way she can hear even when it’s left unsaid.

**You can hear something unspoken? Seems rather illogical.**

_Shut up_ , she tells the sudden, unwanted thoughts in her brain, in the human style she learned at the Academy. She questions herself against her will, her brain taunting her as night descends.

**'Shut up,' you know, is not a Vulcan phrase.**

_It is now, because I said it, and I’m a Vulcan._

**Not** **_really_ ** **. Look at you. You know you don’t look Vulcan.**

 _Belonging is relative. I_ could _belong here._

**You’re only lying to yourself.**

_How would you know if I am?_

**Because I’m part of you. I’m the Romulan in you, the part you can never fully suppress.**

_No, you’re not_ , she thinks at her brain. _You’re the personification of everything about myself that I hate, condensed into one theoretical being that I can actually fight. You don’t even exist._

**Cogito, Ergo Sum. I exist.**

She wants to go to sleep. She feels sick.

**Do you ever wish you gave in, let your Romulan side take over?**

_No._

**Never?**

_No._

**I thought Vulcans couldn’t lie. Seems you’re not Vulcan after all. How sad.**

_I don’t want to be Romulan_ . _I can_ choose _who I am._

**You’d be happier if you stopped fighting yourself; if you just gave in.**

_It’s more important to do the right thing than to be happy._

**Happiness is the only thing that is worth living for. What is a life without passion?**

_A moral one. I have to live for others._

**Does that mean you’re worthless?**

She can’t even answer the intrusive thoughts in her brain.

She rolls over. She finally sleeps.

 

V.  
a·pol·o·gy  
əˈpäləjē/  
_noun_

  1. a regretful acknowledgment of an offense or failure.  




The morning is bright. Saavik wakes up to silence.

She gets out of bed efficiently, stips off her nightgown, and dresses in pants and a shirt instead of traditional Vulcan robes. Human garb strikes her as more practical and therefore more logical, something else that makes her uneasy about Vulcan as a whole. The entire planet is seeped in tradition, claiming its traditions to be logical simply because they are its traditions. It seems to her like a lie, a small but present dark spot on a species that claims perfect honesty.

She has taken Shore Leave on Vulcan before, when the then-Admiral Kirk was court-martialed. Even then, she felt disconnected. But she’s back now because there’s nowhere else she can go, and she’s between tours and starships.

She heads down to the ground floor, her feet quiet on the stairs.

Breakfast provides important nourishment. She goes to the dining room.

Spock is eating.

She hovers at the edge of the doorway, weighing her desire to avoid him against her desire to talk things out with him, to rationalise. And breakfast is a necessity; that tips the scale. After her moment of deliberation, she enters the room.

“Good morning,” she says. She walks and sits across from him, one seat down, diagonal and apart.

“Good morning,” he replies.

“I hope your sleep was pleasant.”

“It was.”

His voice is still removed. Inside, she crumples.

She moves to apologise for her outburst but finds she can’t. She cannot sincerely apologise for something she has no regret for, and she realises she still stands by what she said.

“You were right,” says Spock, after a moment.

Saavik raises an eyebrow in genuine surprise.

“I was so driven to retrieve my memories, I never considered that I did not have to do so alone. I should have reached out to you. It would have made sense. I shunted myself from you, and in doing so, I harmed both of us.”

Saavik feels she must make a concession in return. She says stiffly, “Perhaps I was overly emotional.”

She expects Spock to agree with her. Instead, he shakes his head. “I believe your responses were warranted, Saavik.”

 _Saavik_. The last time he spoke to her, he called her Lieutenant.

“How so?” she asks.

“I was keen to regain my knowledge first, my capabilities as a Starfleet officer. I was -- illogical.”

She listens, not softening yet.

“I have lived the battle between logic and emotion my whole life. I forgot that you had, too. I forgot that I was needed by more than just my career and shipmates. I forgot I had a family that had suffered because of my unnecessary distance. I acknowledge that I was… selfish. And I was in the wrong.”

She waits.

“I realise my apology is not due to you alone, but it is perhaps due to you the most.” He stops, then continues. “I’m sorry.”

 _He said it._ Saavik sits back.

Spock watches her, guarded but visible affection in his eyes.

Finally, she speaks. “ _Chaya t'not._ ” She pauses again, smiles slightly, hopes he will recall the memory behind the words. “As someone very intelligent once told me, _kling akhlami buhfik_.”

Spock, slowly, smiles. “Saavik-kam?” he asks, a hesitant question.

She nods in response, allowing the term of endearment. _Saavik, dear one._

 

VI.  
rec·on·cil·i·a·tion  
ˌrekənˌsilēˈāSH(ə)n/  
_noun  
_ noun: **reconciliation** ; plural noun: **reconciliations**

  1. the restoration of friendly relations.  




One hour later, Amanda Grayson wakes and finds Spock and Saavik conversing freely. Spock looks fascinated as Saavik explains how telling long-winded, made-up “Enterprise stories” was common among the bored, off-duty cadets.

“And which one is your favorite?” she hears Spock ask.

Saavik ponders. “I believe I would have to say the obviously fictitious account of the time you found a planet full of -- I believe the term is ‘gangsters’ -- from the 1920s era of American Earth history on Sigma Iotia II. I believe the tale helped me to understand humor, as the concept of Captain Kirk failing to operate a primitive Earth automobile amused me.”

“Obviously fictitious?” Spock asks.

Saavik’s eyes widen. “You really-” She stops. “And the time where you, on Shore Leave, were chased by perfect replicas of an ancient Japanese samurai and a tiger, conjured by the crews’ imaginations? Did that happen, as well?”

“While the tale you heard was perhaps dramatised, that was indeed a Shore Leave we took.”

Saavik’s face displays something that, on a human, would be barely suppressed awe. “Did you really meet the ancient Earth god Apollo?”

Spock tries to hide a smile, reminded powerfully of Saavik’s younger days. “He was not a very chivalrous man.”

Saavik sits back in her chair. “I forgot how much I learned from you.”

“To what specifically do you refer?”

“How to live life.”

The sentence hangs on the air between them. “How to live _a_ life, certainly,” Spock says.

“Then perhaps I should have said, ‘how to live the life I want.’” Saavik rests her chin in her hand again, settling herself more comfortably on her chair. “Please,” she enjoins. “Tell me the stories of every adventure you had, every tale you never told me before.”

Spock sighs. “Did I ever tell you about the time the _Enterprise_ beamed aboard one solitary, seemingly innocuous tribble?”

**Author's Note:**

> I spent a lot of time crafting this and I live for comments. Please tell me what you thought of it -- it's a few moments of your time, but it can really encourage me.


End file.
